YouTube is awesome, who wouldn't agree? Where else can you see a guy dancing about the room, only to step on a running treadmill that sends him flipping and tumbling to the floor, followed up by the keyboard cat playing him off? Well, a lot of places on this wonderful thing we call the inter-webs, I guess. But in addition to providing the invaluable nonsense that wastes our days away, YouTube can be an incredibly valuable business tool as well.
YouTube no longer carries the stereotype of 'that website you go to and share home videos with your family and friends'. It's exploded into a living, breathing social-networking site that draws in more users than almost any other site on the net - only Google and Facebook beat it out. Millions of people use it, and you can tap into that market by creating and promoting a YouTube channel for your business. It has grown into a reputable source that isn't "the cheap out" way to present videos on your website.
The Benefits
Starting simple, I'll mention the obvious... it's just another platform for your branding on the internet. Having more places that people can find you makes your company more present in the market.
In addition, it will do some great things for your search engine optimization. Meaningful titles, descriptions, tags, etc will be picked up by the search engines and bring the people to you. Links to your website in your channel gets you "link backs," which are very important to search engine optimization. The more sites around the internet that link to your website, the better your placement in search results will be.
Also, if your videos are widely relevant, it gives people the opportunity to link back to your channel or embed your videos into their sites and blogs. That's just one more step out into the network, which generates greater brand presence in the market and more "link backs" to you.
Videos are also a great way to appear credible to customers. It's all psychology really: if you tell people you're the experts, some people will believe it. If you present a video proving that you're an expert, that's golden. People believe what they see a lot easier than what they hear. It's a great reputation-builder, and with a free platform that millions know about and can access in seconds, why wouldn't you consider using it?
From a more technical side of things, YouTube is a breeze to use. It's so much easier than trying to deal with hosting on a media server. One person can manage a YouTube channel - all you have to do is upload a video, fill out a couple of fields and you’re done. Like I said before, even though it's cheaper than other methods, it's no longer "the cheap out" way. It's the way the makes the most sense.
There's also no need to optimize for different downloads speeds anymore. In the old days, you had to make different sizes - one for broadband, one for dial up, one for mobile and sometimes one for PC use. YouTube does it for you now. You can upload a giant HD video and the site takes it, processes it and posts it - in HD! It all works. You need not do a thing.
It's simple to take those videos and embed them right on your site, too. Just tell it what size you want it to be, then copy and paste a chunk of code into your site. Voila, a video on your site!
One last and very important thing (if you read my last post about mobile sites): mobile browsing is the future... there's no two ways about it. YouTube is the easiest way to present videos that are universally mobile-friendly. iPhones don't handle Flash, so you can't use Flow Player playing an FLA, but they do have a YouTube app that comes standard with the device. Your videos will play on a mobile device without aches and pains.
YouTube is where it's at. You can't beat it.